Dog Days
by ShinigamiMailJeevas
Summary: REPOST: Everyone in the direction the man was looking suddenly fell to the ground, dead. Matt couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't get his god-darn legs working to run-: "The dog days are done, Can you hear the horses cuz here they come." -SMUT chapters posted on my AO3 account.


**Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note or Florence + the machine **

**AN**: note that though a few of the songs have the same title, they are NOT the same song, not covers of the others or anything of the like. THEY ARE DIFFERENT. And equally awesome.

_**SEE BOTTOM NOTE FOR IMPORTANT ADDITIONAL INFO**_

**Suggested Listening**: _End of the World __**by**__ Armor for sleep_; It's a War **by** New medicine; End of the World **by** Dead by Sunrise; End of the World **by** New Medicine; _Dog Days Are Over __**by**__ Florence + the Machine_

_~Dog Days~_

The Apocalypse? What a crock of shit, who in their right mind would put stock in something like that?" Matt snorted at the front page news article and tossed the paper into the trash. Turning up the volume of his iPod Matt bobbed his head as he washed the dishes, completely forgetting the large bolded letters that had stared up at him from the frail paper only seconds before.

Matt was nineteen, in college and living on his own in a pretty nice apartment. It had taken all his savings but he was paid up for eight months and only had to worry about food. He had a scholarship for computer engineering and had a fully paid ride. He was set.

Matt dropped a fork on the floor and sighed, bending down to pick it up. He never noticed the jet that flew across the sky or the others that followed.

His apartment was messy like any collage students: covered with books and papers and Styrofoam food cups. Only Matt's also had about six different game systems in view, stacks of games larger and wider than those of his books, and more than eight feet of computer wire snaking around the floor like a garden hose. The large flat screen television—for playing Halo—was on mute to some game channel. Or it would have been had the 'Breaking News' not taken over the screen reporting about riots in Italy, Egypt and Mexico. Three places not usually reported together, if ever at all.

Matt continued on obliviously washing the dishes.

.

Matt didn't watch the world news, not usually. But when there was coverage of over seven different countries on numerous stations, those including networks that wouldn't generally cover such events, Matt thought it might be worth taking a look at.

And when the government tells you there is nothing to worry about, as it was during the live press conferences, even with prices of gas and bread suddenly going through the roof—as being discussed on another channel at the same moment in time—and other countries teetering towards collapse, it's time to pay attention. Time to get nervous. Time to start asking questions.

Civil unrest was popping up everywhere it seemed, even in the usually most peaceful areas, springing up overnight with conflicts growing like weeds, like a disease. Matt watched CNN and started to wonder if it was just the natural progression of humans as a species, Mutually Assured Destruction and all that. Or some terrorist plot to fuck everyone over at once.

That was probably it, and of course it would be hidden by the governments until they were demanded an answer... right?

Anything else was unbelievable.

At least Matt had thought so until Africa was practically nothing more than a dot on the map, more dead than alive from a conflict that had grown into a war that no one had seen happening until too late. It had only taken days and yet the death toll was horrendous. More than all their previous conflicts and genocide combined.

Pictures of the carnage were being shown on every local and national news circuits to the point where it was beyond cruel. Matt swallowed at the pictures of the dead bodies piled high as they were moved for burial; the ground was soaked and stained red from the victims being almost drained of fluids.

The more Matt saw of the news stories the more something didn't seem right, that something was off or missing. Matt couldn't say what had caught his attention or why but it had. The more focus he put on it the more he realized there were no aerial shots _at all_.

News stations always had aerial shots, wanting to depict just how 'tragic' the story was and the gravity of the situation. There were no shots of that kind anywhere, not on the net, not other news stations, nowhere. And whenever it seemed like there was going to be one there was either a 'Breaking News' story or it went to commercial.

Matt chewed his lip in thought before sighing.

"I'm so going to jail," he groaned and left the couch to pick up the black laptop with a red 'M' on the case. Lighting a cigarette Matt let it boot up as the nicotine calmed his jumpy nerves. With a crack of his knuckles Matt opened what he needed.

Matt was going to hack a satellite and get the images for himself. The hacking part wasn't the issue. Matt had always been bored and always looking for challenges so hacking had not been too far off with his technical prows. The not-getting-caugh-when-_they_-were-sort-of-but-not-quite-watching-him was the difficult part. Matt _might_ have gotten caught when he was younger and put on a watch list...

Matt had the black laptop for emergencies. It wasn't even registered. He had built it himself and installed everything on it.

Only the gushing voice of the news reporters downed out Matt's typing and within minutes he was in. Hesitantly Matt clicked the mouse. The aerial view came over the screen and Matt spat out his cigarette.

"Fuck!" staring Matt in the face like a goddamn crop sign was the large glyph of a horse formed fully by blood covering over half the field. There was no way someone could have done that to the grass knowingly; the heaps of bodies were also too far apart and it was absurd to think that blood could somehow form that exact shape, it was too perfect. Concise. And factoring in that the news hadn't caught wind of it...

It was being hidden.

That was the only thought that crossed Matt's mind and his eyes drifted over to the stack of newspapers on his table, the lesser viewed ones, each proclaiming something sinister while the larger more widespread ones spoke of tragedy and rebuilding.

What was going on?

.

The Apocalypse. What a crock of shit, who in their right mind would put stock in something like that?

Matt surely hadn't. Until the damn thing was practically knocking down his door.

It had really started that day with the news reports that led him to hacking the satellite. Matt had spent every free waking moment he could since then watching the news and keeping a log of events and researching anything that looked suspicious to him.

A lot had happened since then too. And none of it good.

The conflicts had continued but the body count had been upped even further when people had started getting sick and dying from something else, something that killed every year but never like this.

The flu.

However the strain going around, making its mark in everyday life by the masks and gloves people sported, was similar if not exactly the same as the 1918 version dubbed 'Spanish influenza'. Entire towns and villages had become infected, loosing the young and old quickly with the healthy following just as fast. No one was alive from that time to relive the horror and most only knew of it in passing. What was happening now was on a larger and more devastating scale due to population density being what it was and transportation modernized.

Then there were the viruses going around, ones there were cures for, cures that no longer cured.

Then came the food shortages because of bad harvests and supplies. Crops were literally rotting in their fields and animals becoming sickly, aggressive and euthanized, their bodies unfit to eat.

Cost of supplies went up and up and the amount of goods available went down in an instant. Fights broke out in stores and it was dangerous just going out for groceries if one could even find a store still open. Martial law, riot control and federal food and water aid came—and things just escalated from there.

That all led to the current time.

Now Matt didn't believe in all that religious BS about the four horseman of the apocalypse but even he had to admit that things were just a little too convenient, his own experience with the blood horse, a _red_ horse, in the forefront of his mind.

Matt ignored the nut jobs spouting off stuff in the streets, ringing their bells and holding their signs about the End of the world. Matt had his own opinions and his own research to follow; sure the world was flailing at the moment and it looked bad but if everyone simply took things at face value nothing ever got solved.

What Matt found, clues speckling news reports old and new, was a little more than disturbing. The more he looked at what he had found the worse he felt.

He had found reports of strange people in the midst of all the carnage, very recognizable with their odd transportation and strange features. Those same people were sighted everywhere, at every small start and large situation. All around the world. Matt would have dismissed it if he hadn't already seen strange things with his own eyes.

Matt cheeked every report he had been able to get his hands on. A strange man with raven colored hair and red eyes, wearing a white shirt covered in blood was seen on the battlefields, during riots, and even spotted in places just before conflicts broke out driving a rust red boat car.

Then there was the woman: beautiful to look at, but left food rotten in her wake. Not much was reported about her other than her light hair, smiling face and friendly demeanor. No one had seen her enter or leave those areas so no mode of transportation was known.

Lastly a man with hideous features and large, too large eyes and spiked blue hair. He was reported as ghoulish and would look more like the walking dead if it weren't for his large grin with pointed teeth. He reportedly had chains dangling from his clothing and an earring. He was the most detailed of them all and perhaps because of the odd features. People paid attention to things they disliked or were afraid of.

Matt sucked in a breath, going quiet for a moment as something passed by his door. The windows were boarded up from both the inside and outside, though he could see out if he wanted. His door was reinforced now and had numerous heavy locks on it. The hinges were protected from the outside and Matt had been able to install a slide out door made of metal that would block the entrance to his apartment, just in case.

Going by the descriptions and the way that the world was... Matt really thought they were all fucked.

War.

Famine.

Pestilence.

Matt really wanted to be wrong, to have lost himself in all the hype. He supposed only time would tell if the other and final shoe was going to drop.

.

.

Matt left his apartment weeks later, after someone had set fire to the building. It didn't matter how protected he was inside if the place burned down around him. He had taken his car from the garage and loaded it with what he could carry. It had been in the garage for a reason and the poor bullet ridden camaro gave out after just fifty miles. But it had been enough to get to a new town.

It was a smaller place with green rolling grass and Matt had been weary with all of its silence and odd shadows, especially when he'd had a gun pressed to the back of his head. Matt had immediately been given new transportation and told to leave, that outsiders weren't welcome unless they were related to someone who lived there, and Matt clearly wasn't.

Matt took some bitter satisfaction a few months later when that town had fallen to the plague. He might have gone down with them had they not shoved him from their doorstep the second he'd gotten there.

The world was not a good place to wander and it had become clear to Matt that he needed a steady place to stay and fast. Some areas were just full of scared people but the cities... the cities were horrible and in no ways habitable with fighting everywhere; murder, rape, the crazies, the preachers, and the just plain desperate.

Wandering through the cities were not days that Matt wanted to remember, ever.

His clothes were raged by the time he finally made it to the more populated areas of the new town that Matt hadn't even bothered learning the name of, well areas populated by houses at any rate. Matt had not seen any people. It was a good sign, it meant he might have found a place to stay. And maybe even some more supplies, if anything was left. He was running out of masks to wear and needed new clothes badly.

Matt picked a house at random and jimmied the lock open. His heart sank when the first thing that greeted him was the barrel of a gun held by a tall brunette in a half business suit.

Matt held his hands up with a weary sigh.

"Just put me out of my fucking misery. I'm sick of walking from place to place and either running for my life or being turned away. So just s_hoot me_." Matt was confident he would not be shot, the man didn't have the same eyes as those on the streets, though Matt was a little worried about just how truthful he had been in his statement. Not worrying _did_ sound nice..

The man hesitated for a long moment before pulling Matt and his belongings inside, the door clicking shut gently and being relocked behind him. Matt was pushed through what one might call the living room, though with the beds set up in all available space it really wasn't anymore, and into the kitchen that was brightly lit by florescent bulbs.

Four people looked up at him from their seating and it was then that Matt noticed the guns on the table beside their food. It smelt good. The last thing he remembered eating had been packaged and possibly on the verge of spoiling.

There was a long awkward moment of silence as they stared him down and Matt wondered if anyone was going to say something or if he was going to be turned away _again_. The attention drifted when someone tutted from the other doorway.

A woman with curled grey hair and a wrinkled face strode into the room; she stopped in front of Matt to survey him.

"Carl put that gun down, and the rest of you make some room, cant you see we have a new house guest? Honestly were you boys raised by wolves? Now sweetie come sit down-"

Matt let the woman usher him into a seat, recently vacated, as food was placed in front of him. Matt was only able to stare blankly, more than a little shocked. "Go on." She urged and with hesitancy, Matt ate.

That woman was the owner of the house, as Matt later found out. She decided who was to stay and who would be leaving. She was never wrong in her judgments and that was the _only_ reason Matt had been able to stay, if only for the moment, without being bound to the chair.

And as Matt found out after lunch the house had been sectioned off for the people who now lived there; two small families and two lone straggles along with the owner. They lived in a tight knit community of people who made damn sure no one else knew they were alive. Had the elderly woman not said anything in his defense, Matt would have been taken out back and shot.

.

.

Matt was grateful for the elderly woman, Nancy, for letting him stay and even more grateful that he apparently held some resemblance to her son who had died of the flu. Matt had taken up residence in the attic of the house. It had previously been her sons room so it was already clean and suitable for living rather than a dusty storage area. It was a sizable space.

He had been there for nearly two weeks and was getting used to the area. All the other houses in the area were much the same as Nancy's, with more than one family living in it and more guns than people stocked inside. The 'community' did routine scavenger runs and took everything they possibly could from water, blankets to toilet paper. They took great care not to be tracked back to the homes in the area, sometimes even staying out on the road with their findings for a few extra days just to lead followers astray.

It was almost a mini paradise, a place to get away from the world and forget that it was falling apart at the seams. Matt had no intention of leaving.

At least permanently. He liked going on scavenger runs to pick up computer equipment and batteries and anything that would run his laptops when the power grids kicked like they seemed they might.

They had entered a city for this run but the section they were in was away from the major fighting and was relatively quiet for the moment; that of course didn't mean they all weren't armed up to the tee.

Another riot had sparked just a few blocks around, where they assumed most everyone from the current area had gone to or hidden from. There was still movement where they were, mangy dogs in the streets keeping their distance and people peeking out behind blinds watching them but never moving. Always movement, always motion.

Until suddenly there wasn't.

The streets had gone quiet, so strangely quiet in a matter of seconds that a nervous feeling spread like fire inside of him. Matt had the urge to run, a feeling so strong that his leg muscles jumped; he might have actually done so had the roaring sound of a motorcycle not broken through the silence like a sledge hammer through glass.

Everyone from his group and even those who had been lurking in the buildings came out to see as the motorcycle came around the corner; not many people rode around on noisy things anymore, they attracted too much attention and attention was a bad thing. They were either well armed or stupid.

It skidded to a stop in the middle of the street a few feet from them and the engine was cut; it was an odd and pale bike, appearing almost translucent. Matt had never seen paint like that. But his attention drifted immediately to the leather clad figure that stepped off. The leather worn was so tight that it left little to the imagination and as the pale man pulled off the helmet his blond hair was ruffled by the short oncoming breeze.

The strangers eyes were an icy blue and the grin he wore was almost manic bordering on demonic. Matt felt instantly drawn to him and yet the urge to run screamed at him just as loud. The blond walked over someone who had had previously been hidden in one of the buildings, and was incidentally the closest to him and asked in a velvety voice '_what time is it?_'

There was no defensiveness that there should have been in the mans demeanor, he simply pulled out a cell phone that was only good as a time piece now and replied. "It's just after two o'clock."

"Oh good, I'm just in time then. It was a bitch to find this place." The blond raised a pale hand with black pained nails and held it as if it were a gun and pointed it at the man before him.

"Bang." the stranger said, and the man before him dropped as though he had actually been shot. Matt was frozen to the spot as the blond whipped out a bar of chocolate and took a bite. Everyone in the direction he was looking suddenly fell to the ground, dead.

Matt couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't get his goddamn legs working to run-

The blond turned his gaze on Matt and the smile seemed to widen, seemed to promise something special for him and him alone even as that chocolate was poised to snap again.

.

The blond, sometimes called Mello sometimes called something else, looked down at the bodies with a grin. Oh how long he had waited for this to come about. His cold gaze landed on a redhead and his eyes narrowed a fraction. Such an odd and special color, red and black were the colors of death and this boy had both of them, his hair and his clothing. Mello let his grin widen and he brought the chocolate up to his lips once more but paused as the redhead suddenly fumbled with a lighter and a cigarette.

He seemed to know he wouldn't be able to run, or perhaps couldn't run, and was using his last moments to smoke; Mello realized all this with vast amusement. He allowed the little creature its final few moments before snapping.

Looking at the crumpled redhead Mello nodded to himself and made the decision. He scooped the corpse up and slung it over his pale motorcycle. No one would touch the body as they fled for their lives.

His grin took on darker tones as he thought of all the possibilities for that corpse. He would probably bring the boy back to life and see how _amusing _he could be. But for now, he had a job. Last thing he needed was Ryuk or Beyond on his case.

So annoying.

And with that, Death walked the earth.

-End part 1-

**AN**: This was posted on here a while back but after my stuff started getting deleted without warning or notice for trivial things such as the summary not being PG enough (I had the word "damn" in it...like really?) i took down around 30 of my works, this was one of them. I can post this chapter of Dog Days as there is no content they can bitch about.

If you would like to read the completed version of this please go here (if the link works, NOTE: take out **ALL** spaces, and parenthesis, and replace words with the actual slashes): **archive of our own(slash) works (slash) 838263 (slash) chapters (slash) 1597277**

It's completed form is on my Ao3 account, also ShinigamiMailJeevas


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